Researchers recover and reuse waste gold nanoparticles
The gold–cyclodextrin complex precipitates out of the recycling solution and can easily be filtered. Source: © Royal Society of Chemistry
A group of US chemists has developed a straightforward method to recover and recycle gold nanoparticles from nanomaterials waste.1
The market share for gold nanoparticles is expected to increase exponentially in the next years, as they have applications in areas like medical diagnostics, storage devices and solar cells. Gold is expensive, and researchers have been developing ways to recover gold from waste. However, most methods require toxic chemicals such as mercury or cyanide.
Now, a team led by Peter Vikesland at Virginia Tech in the US has adapted a gold recovery method first developed by recent Nobel prize laureate Sir Fraser Stoddart2 to capture gold nanoparticles from waste.
Read the full article in Chemistry World.
Waste not want not: life cycle implications of gold recovery and recycling from nanowaste
Paramjeet Pati, Sean McGinnis and Peter J. Vikesland
Environ. Sci.: Nano, 2016, 3, 1133-1143
DOI: 10.1039/C6EN00181E, Paper
From themed collection Sustainable Nanotechnology Organization
